Word: shenzhen
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...TIME's Eastern Europe bureau chief (1981-83). Says Hornik: "That background was really useful as I tried to discern how far its economic reforms have taken China from orthodox Marxism-Leninism." Stationed in Peking since April, Hornik has traveled widely: to Shanghai twice, to Canton and to Shenzhen, one of China's foreign trade and export zones. Perhaps his most absorbing trip was to the huge heartland province of Sichuan. Says Hornik: "It gave me a better feel for China than any other region that I have been to. Until you see the ageless rice paddies of Sichuan...
...once sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen, a new golf course stretches out from the Honey Lake Country Club. High-rise apartment buildings tower above newly created avenues, and a 48-story trade center is nearing completion. Scores of foreign-owned operations, including those of such giants as PepsiCo, Citibank and Sanyo, have streamed into the area, where a decidedly unsocialist billboard exhorts, TIME IS MONEY! EFFICIENCY IS LIFE! In the midst of those developments, many peasant families own three-story houses furnished with stereo systems, refrigerators and color TVs (sometimes two per family so that parents can watch one program...
...managed to form their own lucrative businesses (see box). But Chinese industries, thanks to their system of guaranteed payment and employment?the absence, in effect, of incentives?remain largely paralyzed by their traditions of featherbedding and low productivity. One possible solution is represented by the four coastal enclaves, including Shenzhen, that the government has designated as "special economic zones." These areas, set up to be thoroughfares for the free passage of foreign investment and ideas, have flourished so vigorously that the government plans to create 14 more, from Dalian in the far north to Zhanjiang in the far south...
...success of the government's economic programs has also given rise to a clutch of unprecedented problems. So many curious visitors want to witness the economic miracle of Shenzhen firsthand that the government has had to erect a metal fence, complete with patrol road and sweeping arc lights, along the length of the zone's 54-mile border. Workers in the cities, whose $40-a-month wage used to be twice as high as that of the average farmer, must now watch uneducated villagers take home $400 a month. Jealous, or "red-eyed," party cadres vent their resentment against prosperous...
Foreign investment in Shenzhen, and its separately administered industrial area of Shekou, now totals more than $550 million. There are already 430 projects in operation, and another 330 are under construction or development. While the SEZs are only islands of capitalism in a sea of Communism, the business techniques being practiced there could well have an impact on the whole Chinese economy...